


If the Colossus Should Fall

by Suri



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23354785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suri/pseuds/Suri
Summary: It's December 1986, three days after Valery's revelation of his complicity in the Leningrad cover-up - and Boris isn't feeling well.
Relationships: Valery Legasov/Boris Shcherbina
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	If the Colossus Should Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely about the HBO characters, not the real people.

The knock at the door managed to be quiet and authoritative at the same time. Valery, who had been sitting with his face in his hands for the last couple of minutes, his elbows planted in a mess of papers, stood up, went softly over to the bedroom door and opened it.

It was Tarakanov. That wasn’t a surprise; that knock was typical of the man. Valery opened the door a little, the light coming in from the corridor and illuminating the bed softly, adding to the bright pool from the desk lamp in the corner.

“Ah, good, you’re here." Tarakanov’s voice was almost as deep as Shcherbina’s, much quieter, but brisk as ever. "I thought you must be when you didn’t answer your door. How is he?” Boris was apparently asleep in the bed, its covers rumpled and an array of medicines on the bedside table. The glass that stood there too contained water, not vodka.

“ _He_ is doing very well, thank-you, General.” The whisper from the bed belied what Boris was saying. Valery and Tarakanov exchanged resigned glances. Valery stood aside to let him enter.

“You look dreadful,” he said, very much as one reporting a simple fact.

“Once more, thank-you. As it happens, I’m improving – “ and this statement was interrupted by a bout of coughing. Valery felt the rasp of it in his own lungs and throat. He looked away for a moment, at the pool of light at his desk, at the mounds of paper; and then back at Boris, caught between two heavy responsibilities.

Tarakanov went straight round the bed, slid an arm under Boris’ head, and held the water to his lips. His no-nonsense attitude appeared to have the right effect, because Boris sipped at it, then turned his head aside.

“That’s enough,” he whispered, and Tarakanov dropped his guise of ministering angel and stood back, folding his arms and surveying Boris with disfavour.

“You’ll need to come back at seven tomorrow, General. I’ll be able to do some work by then. Good _night_.”

“Hmph.” Tarakanov and Valery exchanged skeptical glances; they went to the door together.

“You’ll keep an eye on him tonight?”

“Yes, don’t worry. I’ll call if he needs anything.” And Valery saw him out, went back to the desk and sat down.

It was, perhaps, not strictly true that he would keep an eye on Boris, for all his good intentions; once he got deep into the equations, Valery was quite capable of forgetting everything around him. But always in the back of his mind, the worry, the responsibility ate at him. If he’d reported the problem at Leningrad properly. If he’d insisted that the process be reviewed, revised, not hushed up. None of this would have happened. No hellfire explosion, no evacuation; no hundreds of thousands of men being deployed; no Boris lying there, unnaturally still and quiet. They’d both be at their respective jobs in Moscow, and would likely never have met. And they would not be counting down the few years they had left.

He’d protected Khomyuk as best he could, sending her away while the radiation was at its worst. He’d fought Boris to get the town evacuated, and won. He himself – well, that didn’t matter; he was responsible, as he’d admitted to his friends three days ago in that deserted block of flats. Most of the innocents were gone, or were being rotated out of duty when their turn came. He and Boris had been here from the start, and would be here till the end. Boris. Boris was the one who gnawed at his conscience. His death would be Valery’s fault. It might be soon now, and if the colossus should fall, what hope was there for the rest of them?

He sighed, rubbed his face, and picked up the pen. If he couldn’t do much for Boris, lying there in the bed like a shadow, he could at least use the time well. He worked on.

“Don’t you ever stop?” The whisper from the bed was even rougher than usual.

“No. You know that by now. I never stop working.” Valery slewed round in his seat; he hadn’t been aware that Boris was still awake.

“I’m telling you to stop. You’ll be good for nothing in the morning.”

Valery looked down at his hands, which were cramped; at the papers, which were swimming under his eyes. He sighed, put down the pen and hauled himself to his feet, stretching his back as he did so.

“All right. Just a few hours.”

There was a satisfied grunt from the bed.

Valery went about the business of getting ready for his rest. He’d brought his night things with him earlier that evening, so he didn’t have to leave the room. He came out of the bathroom, leaving the light inside on and the door ajar to give a little illumination if needed, and paused for a moment, looking warily at the empty side of the bed. He had never been so intimate with Boris before, despite the weeks of working in cramped quarters, despite the walks, despite that wonderful hug. But Boris raised his eyebrows, and patted the pillow weakly.

“Unless you plan to sleep on the sofa, get in.”

Valery had no plans to sleep on the sofa. His days of sofa-sleeping were long past. Too narrow, too hard on the back. He went around the bed, and clambered in. The sheets were clean if rumpled, the pillow soft. He turned on his side, facing Boris, stretching out to his full length, and sighed.

“Better, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Go to sleep.”

Twenty minutes later, Boris said, “You _still_ awake, Valery?”

“No,” muttered Valery, surly.

“So, what is it?”

“I should have spoken up earlier. I didn’t. I was ambitious, afraid, and so many people have died because of it. I’m dying. You’re dying - ” He stopped short.

“Not just yet. It’s a touch of the ‘flu. That’s all.” 

Valery sneaked a look at Boris, who was looking back, smiling at him. They both knew that it was likely more than that. 

“Of course.” Now they were both smiling, and Valery’s eyes were swimming again. He blinked a few times to clear them.

He thought of Tarakanov, just an hour before, and his confident way of dealing with Boris. Maybe that would work. He levered himself up a little, and slipped an arm between the pillow and Boris’ shoulders, and tugged him close.

There was no explosion, rather to Valery’s surprise. In fact there was a startled silence for the space of a few heartbeats. Then Boris turned towards Valery and laid his head on his shoulder, gently, as if it ached. Such a heavy, precious weight. Valery fought an impulse to stroke the silver hair, to find out if it was as soft as it looked; to touch the face so close to his own; to kiss... 

That might come when Boris was better. Instead he tightened his arm a little around those massive shoulders. The two of them shifted around, getting comfortable, their warm limbs touching tentatively, then relaxing into familiarity.

“Valery,” came that hoarse, quiet voice again. “You didn’t speak up because you knew it would be no use. You didn’t speak up because you were afraid. We’ve all done it. All of us.”

“Even you?”

“Yes. Even me. How do you think I got where I am now? We’re all responsible. The way I see it, we’ll know to do better next time.” 

Next time. There would probably not be a next time; he felt the truth of that in his own body. Eight months of the radiation sleeting through him; he was done for. But yes, he could do better. And this time, with Boris’ head on his shoulder, and his body lying close and relaxed next to Valery’s own: _this_ time, the here and now, perhaps wasn’t so bad after all.

He took his life in his hands, and risked a kiss to Boris’ forehead. Just a friendly peck of the lips, and yes, his hair really was that soft. He found he was smiling again. “Go to sleep.”

Boris leaned into the kiss, and grunted softly with amusement, his breath huffing against Valery’s chest, sending gentle prickles all down his body. “You too. Stop thinking and _go to sleep_.”

And, finally, Valery did just that.


End file.
